MARRIED WOMENS ALLOCATION OF TIME TO EMPLOYMENT AND CARE OF ELDERLY PARENTS

Married women, who have been shown in past research to exhibit relatively elastic labor supply, constitute a group of particular interest with respect to decisions concerning time spent in parental care and time spent in market work. This paper presents estimates of a simultaneous-equations model of employment, hours of work and the provision of care to an older parent. The results provide no evidence of reduced propensities to be employed, or of reduced conditional hours of work, due to the provision of parent care. These findings are consistent with other research on women's allocation of time to competing productive uses.